


The Gifts Inside Your Home

by sevenfists



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, M/M, Sickfic, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-07 17:46:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19214407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenfists/pseuds/sevenfists
Summary: They had two glorious days of shopping, eating, museums, and I-haven’t-seen-you-in-a-month reunion sex, and then Zhenya woke up on the third morning and couldn’t find Sid.





	The Gifts Inside Your Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hockeyallthehockey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hockeyallthehockey/gifts).



> For hockeyallthehockey, I tried to include a lot of your likes! Thank you to snick for the beta work.

Zhenya worried about the trip for weeks ahead of time. Sid didn’t like flying and spent most of the team’s flights in wolf form, curled up on the floor beneath someone’s seat and whining from time to time. He couldn’t do that on a commercial flight, though, and when Zhenya tentatively suggested that he travel in a crate in the cargo hold, where he could shift and sleep and be left alone, Sid got mad at him and said he wasn’t a dog, which obviously Zhenya knew, but—fine. It was Sid’s funeral.

He made all of the arrangements. They got Sid a visa, an annoying but relatively straightforward process. Sid bought his plane tickets. Zhenya sent him endless links to things they could do together in Moscow, until Sid finally called him and said, “I just want to spend time with you, G, I don’t care what we do.”

“I want you to like,” Zhenya said, because that was at the root of all his worrying: the fear that Sid wouldn’t like Moscow.

“I’m sure I’ll like it,” Sid said, his voice softening. “Hey. I’m really looking forward to it, okay? We’ll have a great time.”

Zhenya tried to let himself be reassured. As the date of Sid’s arrival approached, his nerves began to give way to excitement. Sid would be with him in Moscow for two weeks, and then a week in St. Petersburg, which they could take the train to, and then another week back in Moscow before Sid went home to Canada: a month together, to skate and sleep in and go to Zhenya’s favorite cafes. All of it had been Sid’s idea. He texted Zhenya with heart emojis twice a day, when he woke up and before he went to bed. Zhenya was absurdly in love and barely knew what to do with himself. He hadn’t anticipated the deep earnest sweetness of Sid’s affection, the easy, unselfconscious way he said _I love you_ at the end of every phone conversation. 

It hit him hard when he went to pick Sid up at the airport and spotted Sid coming toward him out of customs. Sid hadn’t seen him yet, and he was looking around at the signs, his hands gripping his backpack straps. He looked tired but no worse for wear, and then he spotted Zhenya and his face broke into a huge grin as he waved, and Zhenya’s heart did a few barrel rolls. Here was Sid, just as they had planned.

“Flight is okay?” he asked Sid as they walked out to the parking deck.

“Shoulda flown in the crate,” Sid said, looking at Zhenya sidelong, and then laughed at Zhenya’s expression. “No, it was fine. I’m here now, eh?”

“Yes,” Zhenya said. He slung an arm around Sid’s shoulders and held him close as they walked, even though it was awkward with Sid dragging his huge suitcase. He could manage.

\--

They had two glorious days of shopping, eating, museums, and I-haven’t-seen-you-in-a-month reunion sex, and then Zhenya woke up on the third morning and couldn’t find Sid. He was used to waking up alone; Sid was an early riser and was always starving as soon as he woke, so he never lingered in bed for snuggles like Zhenya wanted. But Sid wasn’t in the kitchen or anywhere else in the apartment. Had he gone out? He hadn’t left a note, and Zhenya was fairly concerned by the time his investigation of every likely hiding spot revealed Sid passed out on the floor beneath Zhenya’s bed.

Zhenya reached beneath the bedframe to gently stroke Sid’s tail. “Sid,” he whispered, and Sid stirred and turned his head to look at Zhenya with his yellow eyes. “Sid, you okay?”

Sid crawled out from beneath the bed and shifted into his human form. A dust bunny clung to his hair. Zhenya gently teased it out. “I don’t feel great,” Sid croaked.

He was running a fever. Zhenya put him in the bed and piled blankets on top of him until he stopped shivering, and then Zhenya went out to the living room to Google some things in a panic. He had known Sid for almost thirteen years, and in that whole time, Sid had never gotten sick.

The internet didn’t reassure him. What if Sid had picked up some deadly superbug? He would certainly hate both Moscow and Russia as a whole if he died there. Zhenya should have insisted on the cargo hold. Sid would be mad at him, but at least he wouldn’t have the plague.

He ended up using Sid’s phone to call Andy, who was annoyed at first to be woken in the middle of the night and confused about who was calling him, but then immediately turned reassuring after Zhenya’s garbled explanation. “This has happened before. I think the stress of flying suppresses his immune response. Let him stay shifted as much as he wants and make sure he drinks water. If you don’t see any improvement in two days, call Dr. Vyas.”

“Okay,” Zhenya said. His hand still trembled slightly as he gripped the phone. Normal. Just the werewolf flu. “Thanks. Sorry for wake you.”

“No problem,” Andy said. “Keep me updated. He’ll be fine, though.”

Sid was asleep when Zhenya went back to the bedroom, but he stirred and opened his eyes as Zhenya sat on the edge of the bed. Zhenya cupped his hand over Sid’s hot, damp forehead. “I call Andy. He said you be fine.”

Sid coughed weakly. “I—yeah. I get sick sometimes when I fly.”

“Wish you tell me,” Zhenya said. He moved his hand to cradle Sid’s cheek. “I come to Canada instead. So you don’t fly.”

“I wanted to.” Sid managed a smile. “Wanted to see you. I’ll be fine in a day or two.”

“Don’t talk,” Zhenya said. He bent down to press a careful kiss to Sid’s forehead. “I make you juice blend. Then sleep.”

“Okay.” Sid sighed and closed his eyes. “Thanks, G.” Zhenya kissed him again.

\--

Sid was really sick: not just exaggerating for sympathy the way Zhenya sometimes did. He spent the whole day in bed, mostly sleeping, mostly as a wolf. Zhenya sat with him for a while, stroking his ears as Sid made low groaning noises in his sleep. He had been cagey about shifting around Zhenya when they first got together, but now, a year and a half in, he would sometimes shift while they were watching TV together and flop around and whine until Zhenya rubbed his belly. It gave Zhenya the same feeling as the heart emojis: that this was real, that they were making a life together. 

Sid roused around dinnertime and dragged himself into the living room, where he slumped against Zhenya’s side on the couch as Zhenya watched the news. “M’awake,” he mumbled.

“How you feel, _solnyshko_?” Zhenya asked. He stroked his hand through Sid’s hair, and Sid made the same groaning noise he had in wolf form, which made Zhenya smile. 

“Bad,” Sid said. “Ugh. I’m hungry, though.”

“I make soup,” Zhenya said. “You want?” Andy had told him cold medicine wouldn’t do Sid any good, but Zhenya had gone to the store and bought some anyway, just in case, and popsicles, which Sid had bought the last time Zhenya had a sore throat, and picked up things for soup. He wanted to take good care of Sid.

“Soup sounds good,” Sid said. He turned his head and kissed Zhenya’s ribs through his shirt. “Thanks for doing all this. Staying with me all day. You didn’t have to.”

“My Sid,” Zhenya said, full of love and pride. “Of course I take care.”

Sid didn’t say anything, but he slipped his arm around Zhenya’s waist and squeezed.

\--

Sid was improved enough the next day that he spent most of it on the couch, and the day after that he made omelets for breakfast before returning to bed for a nap. Zhenya texted Andy that Sid seemed like he would live after all. Andy replied with a smiley face, and then, **don’t let him on the ice for five days and tell him I mean it**

When Zhenya showed Sid the text message, he wrinkled his nose and said, “Why do you know my passcode?”

“8-7-8-7,” Zhenya said. “You predictable.”

“Fuck,” Sid said.

\--

After Sid got better, Zhenya booked them a lavish dacha in the countryside for a long weekend: the biggest and fanciest he could find, with a giant jacuzzi tub and a balcony overlooking a pond. Sid laughed at the tub but ended up taking a bath every night they were there, to Zhenya’s delight. He loved Sid’s wrinkly toes.

“I don’t want to leave,” Sid told him on their last night. They had grilled dinner on the patio and had slow, indulgent sex with the balcony doors open to let in the night air, and now they were lying tangled together as their heartbeats slowed. 

“Don’t want to go back to Moscow?” Zhenya asked. He tweaked Sid’s nipple to hear the noise he always made, some weird cross between a giggle and a yelp.

“No, I mean—I do want to,” Sid said. “But that means we’re going to St. Petersburg soon, and then the trip’s almost over. I don’t wanna…” He trailed off. “We’ll be back in Pittsburgh a month after I leave. That’s not so long.”

“You miss me,” Zhenya said, gleeful. He pushed up onto one elbow to check Sid’s expression, which held none of the humor or playful argumentativeness Zhenya had expected. Instead, Sid looked intensely serious, and Zhenya’s heart lurched.

“I’ll miss you every day,” Sid said. “It’s not that long. But I will.”

“Sid,” Zhenya murmured. He bent to kiss Sid’s mouth, slow and sweet. “Love you.”

Sid rolled them so he was on top. He bracketed Zhenya’s face with his hands and said, “Let’s move in together. I’ll take care of you every time you’re sick. I’ll leave fur on all of our furniture.”

“I put down blankets,” Zhenya said. He couldn’t stop his smile. “Okay, yes.”

“Yes?” Sid grinned at him. “You want to?”

Zhenya drew him down. He hoped Sid could feel his heart pounding. “Sid. Yes.”


End file.
